Jan Crawford: New Sarah Palin movie hints at presidential run

The movie argues that Gov. Palin is a seasoned executive more than qualified to be President
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CBS News' political correspondent Jan Crawford, after screening the soon to be released documentary "The Undefeated," says the take is that if Gov. Palin isn't running for president, "she should be":

By tracing her political rise in Alaska, her battles with Big Oil and the Republican establishment, and her accomplishments as governor, the movie argues one overriding point: Sarah Palin is a seasoned executive who is more than qualified to be President.

It also adds context to her bus tour of historic sites and patriotic events, which she says she undertook to remind people about the principles America was founded on and the importance of the Constitution. Critics have questioned whether the tour is, in fact, just a big publicity stunt, but "The Undefeated" shows video of a young Palin echoing some of those same themes 20 years ago, when she was a rookie on the stump campaigning for office.

That's one of the things I found most striking about the movie. Since Palin burst on the national scene in 2008, critics have portrayed her as an unformed and uninformed political thinker, suggesting someone just crammed her head with these ideas unleashed her on America.

But "The Undefeated" goes a long way towards debunking that tired narrative. It shows an unbroken line in her thinking over the past two decades. The things she's saying on her bus tour about freedom, free markets, fiscal responsibility and the proper role of government are the same things she's been saying ever since she entered into politics.

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Crawford concludes that whether one likes or dislikes Gov. Palin, there's one thing both camps should be able to agree on: "It certainly looks like Palin is running for President."

- JP